Phones Aren't For Talking

I was reading an article in a magazine last night and I came to a realization that most people probably understood years ago.  Phones are not for talking anymore.  As a 28 year old I am still fairly young, but I can remember very clearly the times before cell phones were so commonplace.  It doesn't seem like it should be possible, but I can remember back to before everybody had their own email address.  It hasn't been all that long ago that the only way you could communicate with somebody was to talk to him, and he had to be at his house, or you had to be standing right next to him.

Face to face conversation has always been, and always will be the most meaningful form of communication.  Now with Apple's front-facing camera on the iPhone, that experience can be somewhat duplicated on a mobile device. It still has a little ways to go. The most synchronous and pure form of communication will probably always be two people, in the same place, talking back and forth.  As a society we have always had the desire and the need to communicate at a distance. Back in the day one's options were limited.  A letter could be written, transported over several days, at which time the letter would be read and responded to.  This is one of the most asynchronous forms of communication that we could ever imagine.  In striving to shorten this gap we got the pony express to speed up the delivery of letters. Later we had the telegraph, the first form of the text message.  Then came the wonderful invention of the telephone.  This gave us instant information, and allowed humans to interact across distances in the most synchronized fashion possible.  This was such a good technology, look how long it has remained the communication medium of choice. 

The invention of the cell phone gave a whole new aspect to the telephone conversation, and simple act of making a call.  Now you could have your phone with you anywhere, no matter what.  Before in order to take a phone call you would have to be at home.  You might be busy, but if that was the case you could simply not answer the phone.  The person on the other end dialed your number with realistic expectations about your probability of answering.  When we all started carrying around cell phone people realized that you were almost always going to have your phone with you.  There was no more excuse that you were out.  If you didn't answer right away the other person would surely expect a return call pretty quickly.  I mean, you had your phone with you, how long could it take you to get a free moment.  This created the need for people to start making excuses for why the didn't answer.  Cell phone essentially meant the lines of communication were always open, and that got annoying.   

Things were too synchronous, we were expected to be available too often, we needed a solution.  We needed a way to communicate without having to drop everything and devote our entire attention to one person.  If you simply wanted to ask how somebody's day was going you used to have to call them.  You might not have anything else to talk about.  You were faced with two options. One, call them and ask, then make up other stuff to talk about that you never wanted to talk about in the first place (women).  Two, just forget about it, it didn't justify bothering them with a phone call.  The second excuse became more and more common.  We started queuing up questions, and when we built up enough we could finally justify making a phone call.  We didn't want or need the "right-now" transmission power of the cell phone. 

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but some genius invented the text message.  The text message takes us a step back in the communication continuum, and provides us with a perfect medium for all that unimportant crap that used to require a phone call.  Now we could ping somebody, and they could get to it when they had the time.  We didn't feel like we were bothering them anymore, it was great.  Texting has created the overly polite caller.  Now you might get a text asking you if everything is clear for you to take a call.  I find that pointless, but I do see why some people feel the need.  Texting would be perfect if the mobile phone companies didn't use the service as a way of gouging their customers.  Texting rates are ridiculous, especially considering the tiny amount of data that is transmitted over the network.  All that matters is that people will pay it... and we will. 

Over the last couple of years we have seen this huge uprising of the social network.  Facebook and Twitter are giants now, and have opened up a whole new way for us to communicate.  Not that long ago if we wanted to converse with somebody we had to call them on the phone and devote our entire attention to that one person.  Everything we said to them was in the context of that relationship, and catered specifically for them.  Now we are having constant conversations with hundreds of people, mostly by pumping out short status updates aimed at nobody in particular.  By reading a 140 character message that Johnny writes once or twice a day I can feel like I am interacting with him; staying in touch with him.  If it really strikes my fancy I can leave a comment for everybody else to see, or send Johnny a message that only he can see. Social networking has completely changed the way we communicate.  

We have gone from asynchronous interaction with one person, to synchronous interaction, to asynchronous with tons of people at once.  Facebook is an orgy of communication, with its own set of social norms.  For many it is one-way street.  They will update, but never comment or respond.  For others it is just the opposite.  They will hardly ever update their own status, but they will always be checking others, and working their status in as comments. It's almost like everybody you know is at a big party, and people are just randomly shouting out what they are thinking. Just thinking about that gives me a headache.  If we want to have a one-on-one conversation with a friend we still have the option to dial them on the phone, but there is very little that warrants that these days.  If you don't need an answer at the moment it is much more common to send them an email, or text them if it's short enough.  

If we could erase our knowledge of the last 12 years and go back to our way of thinking in 1998, would you have been convinced that in 2010 phones wouldn't be used for talking?  Instead we would be sending one another sort messages comprised of text that we had to type out letter by letter.  It would seem like a step backward.  Or better yet could we imagine that we would post words on a public forum each time we decided to eat a sandwich, or take our dog out to go the the bathroom?  That just seems ridiculous.

As we stand here now can we imagine how communication is going to change over the next 10 years.  We already see video chat starting to become more common.  Another real-time communication method that will undoubtedly become annoying after the novelty has worn off.  Will the phone call have a renaissance? Will there be another form of written or spoken communication that we haven't even thought of yet?     

I don't know what is going to happen exactly, but I am pretty sure that the home phone will continue to fade away, and it will be almost impossible to get a cell phone plan without paying for some sort of data.  Almost any phone you get these days requires that you sign up for a data plan.  I think next summer we are going to bit the bullet and get the iPhone5, depending on how awesome it is. The smart-phone has become the ultimate gadget.  I don't see any other category of device replacing it anytime soon. It is pretty exciting to see all the new innovations they are bringing to smart-phones, ironically none of it has anything to do with talking on the phone.